Posts Tagged ‘Memorandum Decisions’

When Mary Lansing (not her real name) gave birth to a daughter in August, 2013, her boyfriend (and the father of her daughter) was already in prison. Four months later, she filed a paternity action naming her boyfriend, and sought a court order granting her sole legal decision making authority and child support.

Her boyfriend’s mother Louise filed a motion to intervene in the paternity action. She asked for a court order giving her regular visitation with her granddaughter. Because Mary had expressed concerns about Louise, and the baby’s father had expressed concerns about Mary, the court appointed what is called a “Court Appointed Advisor” to investigate and report.

A Court Appointed Advisor (let’s call them “CAA”) is a professional, usually trained in mental health or appropriate social services. The court actually has the option of appointing an attorney to represent the child’s wishes (though that wouldn’t have made sense in this case, since the child is still just a little older than two), or an attorney to represent the child’s best interests, or a CAA.

The logic of the CAA appointment makes sense. This professional can visit the home where the child lives, the home where visitation or shared custody might be carried out, and interview all the players. The CAA then becomes a witness — an expert witness, in fact, and (in a sense) the court’s own expert witness. This might help the judge get to the bottom of the dispute more readily.

In this case, the CAA prepared a written report and testified at a temporary visitation hearing. After that hearing, the judge ordered that Louise would have one three-and-a-half hour visitation session (unsupervised) with her granddaughter every Sunday.

Mary appealed the order, arguing that the judge had failed to give sufficient consideration to her basic right to control who would have access to her daughter. She also objected to the judge’s reliance on the CAA report, and to the failure to order Louise to pay her attorney’s fees.

The appellate court upheld the trial judge’s rulings on each issue. It was appropriate to rely on the CAA’s recommendations, said the Court of Appeals; there was no evidence that the judge failed to make his own decision about the child’s best interests. Merely because many of the CAA’s recommendations were adopted, it does not follow that the judge improperly “delegated” his decision-making role.

A large part of the trial judge’s ruling relied on the obvious animosity between Mary and her ex-boyfriend’s earlier girlfriend, the mother of his first child. The fact that Louise indicated a desire to let her two granddaughters (and half-sisters) get to know one another should not prevent her involvement in the child’s life.

One other point made by the trial judge (and approved by the Court of Appeals): the amount of intrusion on Mary’s parenting was very limited. A single weekly session for just a few hours should not be seen as much imposition. Mary’s objections, though not irrelevant, should not preclude Louise’s ability to maintain at least some slight contact with her granddaughter.

On the subject of attorney’s fees, the trial judge had noted that Mary’s behavior in the court proceedings was “abusive and unnecessary.” Based on that, and on the fact that Louise was successful in securing a visitation order, the trial judge had refused to order Louise to pay any portion of Mary’s attorney fees.

On the other hand, the trial judge had declined to order Mary to pay any of Louise’s fees — not because she should not have to pay, but because she had no assets from which to pay. The Court of Appeals explicitly approved the trial judge’s handling of the attorney fee issue. Lambertus v. Day-Strange, November 19, 2015.

There are few (perhaps surprisingly few) Arizona appellate cases about grandparents’ visitation rights. Most of the cases that are decided at the appellate level are “memorandum” decisions — meaning that they are not supposed to be cited as precedent in later cases, though they do represent the appellate judges’ thinking on the issue. Mary and Louise’s dispute was resolved in just such a memorandum decision.

Imagine that you are having a dispute with the mother (or father) of your grandchild, and that you want to seek a court mandate that you have visitation rights. Assuming that your dispute is in Arizona, what does this case tell you about your chance of success, or alternative approaches you ought to consider? (If your dispute is not in Arizona, do not take this case or anything we write here as indication of a single thing about your dispute — talk to a lawyer in your state.)

Probably not a lot. Each grandparent visitation case will be dependent on its own facts, and the collection of evidence (and its presentation in court) can make facts difficult to pin down with clarity. The process can be cumbersome and expensive, and bad interpersonal relationships are unlikely to improve in the course of litigation.

Probably the best take-away from Mary and Louise’s legal dispute is that you should start by reading the Arizona statute on grandparent visitation (look particularly at subsection C for visitation). It is important to understand that the statute does not tell you that if you meet the basic standards you will be entitled to a visitation order. Instead, the statute is a threshold issue: if your case does not meet one of the four criteria for a visitation proceeding, there is no recourse under the statute at all.

MARCH 12, 2012 VOLUME 19 NUMBER 10
Georgia Griffin (not her real name) moved from Kansas to Arizona in 1997. She lived in her own townhome in Sun City West, a retirement community northwest of Phoenix, until 2001, when she moved in next door to her daughter Barbara, who lived in Scottsdale.

Georgia’s story was fairly typical: she had lived at home independently until, at age 90, her physical ailments made it difficult for her to get along without help. The move to be next to her daughter was occasioned by her daughter’s concern that she was at risk living alone. One particular concern: after Georgia fell in her home, she worried that if she were to fall again she might not be able to get up, even to summon help.

After Georgia’s initial move to Arizona, daughter Barbara helped her with her banking, filling out checks and making transfers and withdrawals. She was a joint tenant with her mother on some accounts; several were changed from joint tenancy to “payable on death” (POD) to Barbara at some point. Meanwhile, Georgia’s other daughter Elizabeth was less involved — though she also lived nearby.

Shortly before Georgia’s move to be next door to Barbara, Barbara had purchased six condominium units in the complex where she lived. In fact, Georgia’s move was into one of those units. Elizabeth would later argue that the money for those purchases came from their mother’s accounts.

After Georgia’s death in 2003, Elizabeth initiated a probate proceeding and was appointed as personal representative of Georgia’s estate. She then filed an action against Barbara, alleging that Barbara had taken advantage of Georgia while she was a “vulnerable adult” — an important term under Arizona’s law protecting seniors and those with disabilities.

After a five-day trial, she convinced the judge that Georgia was vulnerable, that Barbara had held a position of trust with their mother, and that she violated that trust by using Georgia’s money to purchase her condominium units. The judge entered a judgment for $179,518.51 against Barbara, and imposed a constructive trust on five of the condominium units (ordering that they could be sold to satisfy the judgment). The judge also ruled that Barbara had forfeited any right to inherit from her mother’s estate; the judge did not impose treble damages against Barbara, which was an option available at the time (the Arizona legislature has since reduced the maximum penalty to double the amount of the basic judgment, though that would not have made any difference in this case).

The Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the judgment. The key question raised by Barbara on appeal: how could the trial court have found Georgia was “vulnerable” when the evidence indicated she was fully competent? Can vulnerability be based solely on evidence of physical limitations?

The short answer: yes. The appellate judges ruled that vulnerability for purposes of Arizona’s exploitation statute can be predicated solely on physical impairments if, as a result of the impairments, the victim is unable to protect herself from the exploiter. Mental impairment is not necessarily required. In this case, according to the court, Georgia’s “diminished vision and hearing could also have made her more susceptible to exploitation, as they could make her less aware of her surroundings and the circumstances of any transactions in which she became involved, thereby making her less able to protect herself if targeted for exploitation.”

That is not to say that every transaction Georgia might enter into would be suspect. “A vulnerable adult may still have the capacity to transfer property,” according to the judges. In fact, Georgia had transferred her original townhome to Elizabeth and the family home in Kansas to Barbara; those transfers did not necessarily amount to exploitation.

There is a second interesting holding in the appellate decision, though it is perhaps less far-reaching in its scope. After the trial was over, and while one of Barbara’s sons was packing up his belongings to move out of the condominium he lived in (and which would now be sold), he said he discovered old letters written by Georgia. Those letters related how Georgia was helping Barbara and her husband purchase several condominiums so that they would have income when they retired. Barbara moved to reopen the trial to introduce those letters, but the trial judge refused.

That refusal was not error, according to the Court of Appeals. There was insufficient evidence that the letters could have been found by diligent search before the trial. More importantly, the letters would not likely have changed the outcome. Why not? Because Barbara’s (and her husband’s) defense throughout the trial had been not that Georgia permitted the use of her money but that none of her money was involved in purchasing the condominiums. The letters would therefore have run counter to their core argument. In re Estate of Gorsik, April 12, 2012.

There are several footnotes worth mentioning in discussion of the appeal in Georgia’s case. First, the decision is a “Memorandum Decision.” That means that, though the appellate court laid out its reasoning and legal arguments, the decision is not “published” and therefore can not (at least not usually) be cited as precedent in other, similar cases. It is in the nature of lawyers and judges to make and keep records, so one irony about unpublished (memorandum) decisions is that they are published, can be read by anyone who wants to take the time to look for them, and are often cited as at least some evidence of the inclinations of appellate courts.

Another small irony: even as Georgia’s case was working its way through the courts, the Arizona legislature has been busy weakening the protections afforded to victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation. First, as noted above, was the reduction of “treble damages” awards to “double damages.” That, as it turned out, had no direct effect on Georgia’s case, since the trial judge decided that extra damages should not be awarded — but it does make such cases less attractive to lawyers with experience in exploitation cases, and it reduces the likelihood that any given case will be initiated in the future. Since then, the legislature has continued to push at the margins of abuse, neglect and exploitation cases; there is a bill pending even now that would eliminate the availability of an award of attorneys fees to the successful party in cases involving vulnerable adults.

Why would the legislature want to eliminate protections for vulnerable adult victims? Probably because some abuse, neglect and exploitation cases are filed against nursing homes, long-term care homes and medical providers, and they tend to have legislators’ attention. Vulnerable adults, by contrast, have a very poor lobbying record.